ARTICLES ABOUT HOWIE ROSEMAN BY DATE - PAGE 3

It took Chip Kelly less than four weeks to hire a coaching staff of 26 after he was named Eagles head coach two years ago, but it could take as long for him to find the one man who will be his second-in-command in personnel. Although he has made many coaching hires, Kelly has never had to hire an NFL senior scout. He will look for someone who checks off the typical requirements in any job - someone who is intelligent, committed, a leader, congenial - but he also has to find someone who fits his vision for the position.

I THINK CHIP KELLY is really, really smart, one of the sharpest people I've met in sports. Eagles fans had better hope I'm right about that, because the restructuring the Eagles announced Friday, buried beneath layers of horrid corporate-speak, means their hopes and dreams are now totally riding on Kelly being not just a good coach but a transcendent, bronze-bust-in-Canton-level figure. Chip has a lot to prove and to learn to get to those heights. Bill Belichick had spent a quarter-century in the NFL, including a failed head-coaching stint in Cleveland, before he got the Patriots job and total personnel control.

If there was any doubt Chip Kelly can run an effective hurry-up offense, that question was settled Friday when the coach succeeded in deposing general manager Howie Roseman just two days after Roseman asserted his control of the Eagles organization by dismissing a player-personnel second-in-command considered to be a Kelly ally. Compared to Kelly, the Empire dawdled when it struck back. There's no indication whether the meeting that took place in owner Jeffrey Lurie's office with Kelly and Roseman was a two-minute drill or a two-hour siege, but when it ended Kelly was in charge of everything that involves the football operation, and Roseman was in charge of his calculator.

JEFFREY LURIE changed his mind about Howie Roseman continuing as the Eagles' general manager, 5 days after laughing off the idea. This happened either because (a) Lurie was, as he indicated in a statement released yesterday evening, swept away by a "fully integrated," "all-encompassing vision" of his front office, that emerged from meetings this week with team president Don Smolenski, coach Chip Kelly and Roseman, or (b) because team chairman Lurie was terrified Kelly might leave if he didn't get full control of personnel and the draft.

Chip Kelly is now in charge of the Eagles' personnel department, the result of an organizational restructuring announced by owner Jeffrey Lurie on Friday night that gives Kelly more power and leaves Howie Roseman with a new role but without control of the players on the roster. Roseman, who had been the team's general manager, is now executive vice president of football operations. He will direct contract negotiations, salary cap management, and NFL strategic matters. He will oversee the team's medical and equipment staffs.

Chip Kelly won. There's no other way to look at the "structural change" that Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie announced on Friday. The head coach not only has final say over the 53-man roster - which he flouted several times over the last two years - but he "will now oversee the player personnel department" after former general manager Howie Roseman was "elevated" (read: exorcised from player evaluation) to the role of executive vice president of football operations. Kelly will be able to hand pick his own "personnel executive" - general manager, or what have you. He will have absolute football power.

What Howie wants, Howie gets. There is no other conclusion to draw from the Eagles' dismissal of Tom Gamble, formerly their vice president of player personnel, formerly the man in the franchise's front office whom Chip Kelly respected most, formerly a thorn who apparently pricked general manager Howie Roseman one too many times. For years now, there really has been no other conclusion to draw about the power structure within the Eagles organization. Roseman has owner Jeffrey Lurie's ear. Lurie trusts him. Lurie puts him first.

TUESDAY EVENING, Eagles security officials escorted Tom Gamble out of the NovaCare complex, as is protocol for fired employees, and the team's future got a whole lot more complicated. Gamble, now 51, arrived 23 months ago from San Francisco to give general manager Howie Roseman the seasoned NFL personnel perspective many observers thought Roseman needed. Roseman had risen through the front-office ranks on the business side, though Roseman, now 39, has always seen himself as a personnel guy. Wednesday, the Eagles announced that the team and Gamble had "agreed to part ways.

The Eagles and their vice president of player personnel, Tom Gamble, "have agreed to part ways," the team said Wednesday, describing the abrupt exit of the club's most powerful personnel executive besides general manager Howie Roseman. Gamble was believed to be a close ally of coach Chip Kelly. The move was made after a season in which there was tension between Kelly and Roseman, according to several sources. Roseman, Kelly, and owner Jeffrey Lurie were not available for comment, according to a team spokesman.

The Eagles pulled back the curtain to reveal the bitterness that had developed between Chip Kelly and Howie Roseman when they announced Wednesday afternoon that they had "parted ways" with Kelly ally and vice president of player personnel Tom Gamble. Aside from a brief statement by Roseman, the Eagles swung the curtain closed with nine hours to go until the new year. Weeks will pass before anyone from the organization is required to talk and be asked to explain why they fired - because that's essentially what it was - someone Kelly had praised only two days earlier.